Paris Peace Conference 861.00/137: Telegram
The Chargé in Denmark (Osborne) to the Commission to Negotiate Peace
[Received in Paris January 20, 10:25 a.m.]
118. From Buckler for Colonel House.
Supplementing Legation’s 116 of yesterday, the following is an estimate of the situation based on information gathered at Stockholm [Page 18] and here. Military intervention and occupation of Russia even if ultimately successful can only succeed at an indefinite date in the future, meanwhile war conditions fostering Bolshevism there and elsewhere will continue.
Agreement with Russia can take place at once, obviating conquest and policing and reviving normal conditions as disinfectant against Bolshevism.
Despite guarded language of my Stockholm friend, I am convinced that if we do not greatly curtail Russian territory, we can make a fair bargain regarding foreign debt and foreign interests. If Russia loses Siberia and coal and oil fields, the terms granted as to debt will be proportionately less good.
If the Allies boldly say, “We are now convinced that the Soviet Government has a firm hold on the Russian people and will recognize it upon conditions, but we shall not drive a Brest Litovsk bargain, we contemplate generous treatment and expect the same in return,” such an attitude will pay both in the long run and at once, by strengthening the moderates like Tchitcherine and Litvinoff, it will drag the Soviet movement to the right, and keep in power men who see that foreign capital and industry must be fairly treated.
To embitter Russia by a repetition of German territorial rapacity would mean worse terms for Allied interests there.
Doctor Davidson, Major Wardwell’s21 former assistant, who left Moscow only last November, fully confirms the account in the Times, January 10th, page 9, of the increasing strength and efficiency of the Soviet Government.
- Maj. Allen Wardwell In May 1918 succeeded Col. Raymond Robins as head of the American Red Cross Commission to Russia.↩